Justin Furstenfeld: Still a Stephenie Meyer Fan, but Management Not So Much

To anyone who listens to Stephenie Meyer’s playlists, you realize that band Blue October has a prominent place on them. Justin Furstenfeld, lead singer of the band, even toured with Stephenie Meyer at the four signings she did for Breaking Dawn, (New York, Chicago,Los Angeles, Seattle) back in summer/fall 2008 called the Breaking Dawn Concert Tour. (See photo above via LIFE and the video below)

Justin has made no secret of his life-long battle with depression, and he sat down with Blast magazine(the first interview in awhile) now that he is back from a publicized stint in rehab and ready to tour again (notably with an upcoming concert at The House of Blues). He talked no-holes-barred about a number of things, Stephenie Meyer included,

According to Blast:

“Furstenfeld did just that during our conversation[be unafraid to talk about elephants in the room] — he talked about his love for “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer and his disdain for her representation*. Rumors circulated last year that Blue October, who toured with Meyer, would have a song on one of the Twilight soundtracks. But it never came to pass, and the reasons behind it remained a mystery.

“Me and Stephenie Meyer are great friends,” Furstenfeld said. “I hate her camp, but I love her. Stephenie Meyer had the balls to take me to dinner…she said, ‘I wanna put your songs in my movies…’ and I was like, ‘Wow. That’s my dream — let’s do it.’ First movie comes out, no song. Second movie comes out, no song. Her management was like, ‘Everything we told you was a lie.’”

I would love it! That really stinks that her management is doing that, and I agree with “MM” above – good to know she doesn’t have complete control and that any bad decisions (like this one) aren’t necessarily her idea.

Maybe this publicity about it on Furstenfeld’s part will help sway things in their favor. I hope her management is reading this.

Blue October has been my favorite band for years now. I’m madly in love with Justin’s voice (he’s not so bad on the eyes either!) and the sound of the band. To put them together with a Twilight movie would be an incredible experience. We’ll have to see if it happens.

My Never and Congratulations most definately belong and deserve to be the Breaking Dawn soundtrack — I cannot read Breaking Dawn without having those songs in my mind. Shame on Summit for not including one of Stephenie’s inspirations in the movies. Maybe we need to start a petition!

I would start a petition on Facebook (not that FB needs another crazy group — but at least this one would really serve a purpose). But I wouldn’t want to do anything that would upset any of the parties involved — Justin has let his feelings known and he’s obviously not worried about what Summit thinks. Hmmmm…how can we work to make this happen?!?!?!

of course, who wouldn’t. love their music. it would make it even better knowing that Meyer approves and even has them on her play lists. what were they thinking, keeping them off the soundtrack?! that was a boneheaded thing to do.

I love Blue October and there are many songs of theirs that would be fitting on any of the Twilight soundtracks. I have enjoyed the soundtracks so far but sometimes I get the feeling they “management” chooses songs or artist the way Hot Topic used to make sample CDs. They want to say “hey, look how indie and cool we are”. It hasn’t helped anything. The soundtracks get good reviews but the movie is still blown off. S.Meyer is who made us fans in the first place, they should trust her more when making decisions.

poor guy! I dont know why he didnt just have his management contact chop Shop (they put on the soundtrack) and submit music! That is how you do it! Stephenie can only do so much..but the songs have to be heard my the music supervisor and the director 🙂 He could totally be on breaking dawn!

I had a feeling about this. I love Stephenie and some people might not like some choices that were made but now I know it wasn’t her. I really hope Justin get’s a song in Eclipse or Breaking Dawn SO SUMMIT DO IT !!!

None of the songs on New Moon soundtrack. No offense to the music supervisors, but it seemed like it was more about selling records for the bands and less about good music in the movie. I think Blue October is a much better pairing with the movie. Why can’t they see this? Let’s start a petition!

I really hope they use blue october’s song “congratulations” for breaking dawn. it’s one that Stephenie had on her play list for jacob and it’s absolutely perfect for when jacob shows up at the reception. check it out

Over the last few months I’ve kind of noticed that Summit Entertainment seems to be a company that handles things very underhanded and does things purely for the furtherment of the company and not to help or grow a project. Take when they cut Rachelle because of a ‘scheduling conflict’. Cam had had a scheduling conflict and they did everything they could to make sure he was still in the film. It doesn’t sound like Summit cares about who they hurt or step on as long as they get the fame they want.

I would love to have Blue October on any of the Twilight movies. Even if it never comes to be, I’ll always love Blue October. Thanks Stephenie for introducing Blue October to your fans. Because I love Twilight so much, I will always have visions of the story in my head when I hear Blue October. It takes you right back into the Twilight world where we all love to be!

There are several factors that come into play when creating a “song list” soundtrack for a movie, and more often than not, what works well in the book, may not work well in the scene for the movie. In short, Summit has to walk a fine line as to when to use bands vs the original score. In the case of the song-list soundtrack a studio can go through hundreds, if not thousands of songs to find the right songs for the specific moments of a movie. Many artists submit titles to play, along with songs that are picked by the director/producer and so on and so forth.

Don’t fault Summit too much. They have been very generous to Stephenie Meyer and allowed her a lot of control over her properties that rarely happens. In the end though, there are certain things that she doesn’t have control over, but it is the name of the game.

I agree about Summit, though I have found them, in general, to be dismissive well beyond the point of rudeness. Pretty harsh, actually, including to their most ardent supporters. I understand why they might be like that, but it sure takes the wind out of your sails.

That is a matter of opinion, really. To be honest, I’m really old school when it comes to film and film music. I prefer not to have ANY bands, but rather let the score express the emotion, however the Hollywood/Pop age often dictates differently.

I agree with Dodgy Darko…I love the New Moon soundtrack, but I don’t believe many of the songs actually go with the movie. And it doesn’t make any sense to me that someone would say the music that Stephenie was inspired by while writing the books wouldn’t go with the movie…?? Ummm…hello? That’s what she was listening to while writing the books…which then led to the movies? 🙂 I love Blue October. On her MS playlist she has another song of theirs “A Quiet Mind”. Freaking awesome…

I love Blue October. I have loved them for a very long time and I have hoped that they would be on the soundtrack since the start of Twilight. Whoever it is that is preventing them from being on there needs to just let them have a song in the soundtrack.

” now that he is back from a publicized stint in rehab and ready to tour again”

This made me think he’d fallen off the wagon and was on drugs again, but he wasn’t in rehab, he was in the hospital for an extreme anxiety attack. Better known as a nervous breakdown. Big difference.

And I would have loved to have some of their music on the soundtrack. They could have left out RPatz songs. I know, don’t hit me, I just did not like his style of singing at all. It was more like mumbling to me.

After New Moon, it seems a waste of time to choose perfect songs for soundtracks. Weitz had indie groups write all ORIGINAL music for New Moon. Catherine Hardwick is the only one who used already written songs.

I wonder if Slade is going to follow in Weitz’s shoes and get totally original songs for the whole soundtrack again??

I would hate it if Blue October was on the soundtrack. They really aren’t current. I have seen them live and they were terrible. I don’t mean to be a hater but I am glad they haven’t been on the soundtrack.

It’s sad that her management don’t want Blue October on any of the soundtracks so far. I really love their music and it would help tie the book playlists to the movies. I love that Muse has made it to both soundtracks and would like it if Blue October was recognized in the movies too!

I love Blue October’s music and I identify with a lot of Justin’s themes of mental illness and depression. I really feel as if Blue October’s songs and especially the lyrics must have been influential as Stephenie wrote the stories, so it would be extremely appropriate for them to be included in the films. Blue October is what I hear when I read the books and I simply cannot separate the music from my experience of the stories (although I love Blue October regardless of the Twilight world).

I love Blue October and some of their songs are so appropriate for the movies. They should absolutely be on the soundtrack! Couldn’t Stephenie convince whoever is in charge of that? Without her imagination, there would be no “Twilight” movies.

We went through all of this last year when every site had polls to nominate songs for the soundtrack for New Moon. And guess what? NONE of them made it. Weitz went totally indie and had all original music. Who knows what Slade is going to do.

I like “Hate Me” but I’m not holding my breath for it to make the cut.

I would love to have Blue October as one of the bands on a Twilight Saga film. I have been a huge fan of Blue October for over 10 years now . I am glad that several of the bands that don’t get played on radio have found their way into Stephanie’s heart and that she loves them just as well as us. I hear their music in the books.